LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Analysts at Jefferies cut their target price for shares of Standard Life Aberdeen from 410.0p to 361.0p, but still saw value in the shares and therefore kept their recommendation at 'buy'.
Commenting on the company's results, the analysts highlighted the fact that assets under management had come in £14.1bn below their forecasts of £551.5bn, but on the flip-side, they said that the group's balance sheet was "solid".

But above all, they called attention to management's commitment to keeping the company's payout at 21.6p per share until growth resumed.

"So, at current levels, SLA will yield over 8% until the dividend starts growing again, after 2021 we expect. With this attractive yield and realisable assets, we still see value in the shares," they said.

To back-up their argument, they also pointed to Standard Life's recent sale of about £380m in shares of HDFC Life which means "we know that SLA is able to realise significant chunks of its non-core assets."

Jefferies had also estimated that the arbitration tribunal's ruling in favour of the wealth manager in its dispute with Lloyds could be worth £250m.

On 15 February, Lloyds rowed back on an agreement for Standard Life Aberdeen to run £109bn of Scottish Widows clients' pension investments, awarding approximately 80% of the mandate to Schroders and the remainder to Blackrock.

But roughly a month later, the tribunal ruled against Lloyds, saying it did not have the legal right to revoke the mandate because it had claimed that Standard Life was not a material competitor.

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